Daniel is trapped in Ubo. He has no idea how long he has been imprisoned there by the roaches.
Every resident has a similar memory of the journey: a dream of dry, chitinous wings crossing the moon, the gigantic insects dropping swiftly over the houses; the creatures, like a deck of baroquely ornamented cards, fanning themselves from one hidden world into the next.
And now each day they force Daniel to play a different figure from humanity's violent history, from a frenzied Jack the Ripper to a stumbling and confused Stalin, to a self-proclaimed god executing survivors atop the ruins of the world. As skies burn and prisoners go mad, identities dissolve as the experiments evolve, and no one can foretell their mysterious end.
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NOW IN UBO, he felt as if he'd not just fallen into but passed through the rabbit hole. 1
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(Solaris, 9 February 2017, 246 pages, ebook, bought from @AmazonKindle)
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The author has been on my TBR list for ages since I read a Primer (a sort of bibliography) devoted to his work. I'd read some of his stories before in magazines but not full length fiction. I wanted to read this because it has a lot of good reviews. Ubo is an unusual horror novel with science fiction elements. The premise intrigued me, giant insects kidnap men from all over the world and take them to what appears to be a mysterious and force them to re-enact the darkest and most violent moments in history from inside the mind of the villain. Re-enactments include Jack the Ripper and Hitler. Ubo is told from the POV of Daniel as he strives to find a way to escape the lab and go home. But where is home? Where is Ubo? Is escape even a possibility? Ubo is very original and hugely enjoyable.
